Arthur was secretly glad he had never had children. As he watched his knights and the members of the court settle down and start procreating he saw how messy, noisy, and thankless the task of children are.
He certainly enjoyed practising baby making but a successful attempt was something he dreaded. He had spoken to Gwen about this once, it was dark and late and they were lying in bed. He discovered that she'd rather not have children but she was sick of the court looking down at her expecting her to pop out a couple brats. Of people thinking she was a bad person for not wanting children.
So Arthur has made a formal declaration that his heir would be a person with good and true value. That he wanted to entrust the future of Camelot to a person who loved it and could look after it, any children he may or may not have would not necessarily fill that requirement. He could not ensure that his eldest child would be the best person for the job. So Arthur would let the people know his decision when he made it.
Arthur was rather proud of his Camelot, crime was down, people were clean and fed, literacy levels were on the rise and so was general equality. Your birth no longer dictated your life. Letting women and peasants become knights had come with a few teething problems, but they had been overcome. Formulating the idea of one law had been radical. Now everyone was held to the same standard and because of it everyone seem much happier. There had been brief uprising when certain people weren't happy to give up their privileges but on the whole everything was looking up.
That was until Arthur fell under some ice, the resulting illness was going to kill him and there was nothing they could do. So Gwen repealed the law on magic. And a plump, short, old woman had come forward to heal the king. She had said her name was Hajar Fashin, and she came from Cordoba, where she was uniquely placed to learn the best of the East and the West in the comfort of her own home. During the healing process she and Arthur had had many interesting chats about magic. The whys, the hows, the whats, the wheres, and the whens. Arthur had learnt a lot and the whole of Camelot was saddened when Hajar had to leave. She had left her young daughter in the care of an astronomer friend and was worried that he would completely mess up her sleeping pattern.
In all it had been almost three years since Merlin left and Arthur had a sneaking suspicion that Merlin had planned this all. Arthur wanted Merlin to be impressed with him when he came back. The king wanted to show his man all that he could do, he wanted to make Camelot a place that Merlin would want to come back to.
Having had enough, for really how long could it possibly take to learn medicine? Arthur decided that he was going to have Gauis call his apprentice back home. He stormed into Gauis' chamber, his kingly cape billowing impressively behind him. And was stopped short by Gauis bouncing a small blonde child on his knee and telling off a small bird. "You had enough magic to get you and Jinan here but you can't change yourself back? Honestly you've been gone for years, surely you'll have a teacher somewhere in the world that'll help you." Gauis was alternating between grinning at the child and glaring at the bird. The bird, a sparrow, shook its head and in and flash of gold it was gone. "Show off," Gauis shouted, he turned to Arthur still with a child on his knee, "how may I help you your highness?"
"What was that?"
"An old student of mine coming to me for help, got himself stuck in that form, I'll be looking after his daughter until he can come back and do so himself." Gauis didn't look to unhappy at that prospect.
Arthur being under no illusion to the evils of small children stayed well away from the bundle of terror. A closer exception, from afar, didn't tell Arthur much, just a blonde child, with a tan, bubbling away in baby language, or at least that's what he thought until Gauis replied.
Gauis spoke to Arthur, "you wanted something Sire?"
"Merlin, Gauis, I want you to call Merlin back." With that he left Gauis, to go sulk that there was another child in his castle.
